


risk

by icygrace



Category: Reign (TV)
Genre: Bittersweet, Brotherly Love, F/M, Frash feels, season 3 compliant through s3e07
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-06 06:31:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5406605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icygrace/pseuds/icygrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He thinks he knows what discomforts to expect in Scotland. </p><p>One discomfort he could not have guessed is being thrown together again with the woman who was once his wife.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> A (relatively) quick thing I came up with - instead of a new chapter of "and on your head a crown" or another AU - that I've decided to post right away, instead of sitting on it for a while like I usually do. It's been a while since I posted a new story.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!
> 
> (Reign does not belong to me.)

_Delphine, when I told you I wanted you out of my head, I was just scared. Any time I've opened myself up, I've been hurt. My brother, my wife, my parents. But with you, it feels different. It's a risk, you're right . . . our hearts, our lives . . . but you make me want to. Please. Will you risk it all with me?_

She did and she died. And everywhere he looks, he sees her.

 

And if not Delphine, Francis. What he’d found with Delphine and the mission that brought them together had distracted him from the pain of his brother’s death, at least for some time.

 

With Delphine killed at the vanquished murderer’s hand, Francis dead, their father dead even longer than that, his marriage annulled, and his mother cut out of his life forever, he is now entirely alone in this world save for his remaining siblings.

 

He does want to be a brother to Charles, to help him, especially with Narcisse, snake that he is, displacing Catherine as regent, yet he can hardly bear to be in the castle. He tries his best to overcome himself, but no longer can when he discovers the truth of his mother’s long silence: she is dead. However angry he was, he banished her as much from anger as from fear for her life. She’d done something monstrous, but he could not allow her to die for it if he could prevent it. Learning that she is dead, at Catherine’s hand – Catherine, with whom he tried so hard to put aside his differences for the sake of the people they both love – is too much. Whatever obligation he feels to his brother, he cannot remain.

 

He tells himself he is not doing Charles so great a wrong. His mother’s death is only more proof that Catherine always comes out on top, he reminds himself bitterly. Catherine will fix things for Charles and he will return someday, when thoughts of those lost don’t pain him so acutely and Catherine is dead, or when he can look at her without wanting to tear her apart. Then he will be whatever help he can be to his remaining brother.

 

Still, Charles feels betrayed by his decision and they part in anger. He is pained at the thought of leaving his brother thus, but he must. Better that he bear the brunt of Charles’s anger than burden him with things he does not need to know.

 

\---

 

_You will always be welcome in Scotland. No matter who else I must marry for her sake, I will always consider you my family._

 

He thinks he knows what discomforts to expect in Scotland. He will be an outsider. As a brother of Mary’s late husband, he will be distrusted by men courting her. Her Scottish advisors will be suspicious of his motives because he is French; they may even think him her lover, since they once ran away from his father’s court together and nearly married. The courtiers at Holyroodhouse will sneer at him; most royal bastards are better-titled than he is as a mere baron. _Better-loved_ than he is, people will say. No one would believe he’d turned down a duchy to be closer to the brother and king who’d offered it.

 

One discomfort he could not have guessed is being thrown together again with the woman who was once his wife.

 

\---

 

When he first arrives and catches a glimpse of Kenna, he sees at once that she is far less downcast than she was when he last saw her, when he told her they were finished. He thinks she must have found another, but then he hears the rumors about her, brought to his attention by courtiers who want to see the reaction of her former husband to the loud whispers that she is a fallen woman. He quickly understands that she has risked, if not entirely ruined, her prospects for a new marriage by keeping her child with her, but she truly seems not to care.

 

As for himself, he decides it best just to face Kenna head on and quickly, so that he does not misstep. He does not wish to cause Mary unnecessary trouble.

 

“Everyone has guessed at the truth, of course,” she says. “But because Mary welcomed me and keeps me here as her lady, no one will question me to my face.”

 

“What is your story, if anyone should ask?”

 

“While I was decorating a royal retreat for Mary and Francis, I became very close friends with a woman recently widowed, who was pregnant. As she lay dying after a difficult labor, she asked me to care for her child as though he were my own. I could hardly refuse.”

 

\---

 

Not to care very much, anyway. He notices that, like him, Kenna now leaves court gatherings earlier than she ever would have in France, likely because she is never once asked to dance, by men eligible or otherwise. Neither is Lola, but Lola at least remains married to the regent of France, however deeply estranged they may be, so people do not slight her so openly despite the fact that she, too, was disowned by her family long ago.

 

“May I have the next dance?” he asks one night. He remembers how fond of dancing and socializing Kenna was and it bothers him to see her at the edges of the ballroom at every feast and fete.

 

“You don’t really want to do that,” Kenna whispers.

 

“Why not?”

 

“Because I – frankly, I’m poison to whatever prospect of acceptance you may have here in Scotland. It brings shame upon our families –” hers and Lola’s – “for Mary to keep their fallen daughters here. They are angry. Don’t risk it.”

 

And they are powerful, Bash knows. He knows Mary’s ladies were not chosen merely because they played well with the little queen, but also because of who their parents were. Greer’s family was tremendously wealthy then and the others are powerful noble families whose support Marie de Guise needed.

 

Kenna is the youngest of five children – four daughters and one son. Her birth nearly immediately and unexpectedly followed that of her brother, the two of them much younger than the older three girls. Her father was wealthy enough to provide huge dowries for all four daughters without much effect on his heir’s portion, but he’d withheld Kenna’s and cut ties with her entirely when they married. Not because she’d become mistress to a king – although he’d let her know that, if she must, she should have waited until after she made a brilliant match, arranged by the king mad with wanting her – but because she must have displeased the king greatly if he’d given her to his titleless bastard as a wife when he tired of her.

“Kenna –”

 

“My father is livid. Two of my older sisters are here at court and they’ve given me the cut direct. Before, I always thought it was just Father that –”

 

“I don’t care what they think,” he interrupts.

 

“You should.”

 

“I’ll risk it.”

 

“You never did care for your position,” Kenna sighs. Finally, she nods and gives him her hand.

 

As they dance, she begins to smile – a smile he has only seen once before since he arrived at Holyrood.

 

\---

He promised Francis that he would see to his nephew’s wellbeing and he means to keep that promise. Although at first the nursery maid seems confused every time he appears, he not infrequently visits his nephew in the nursery. He knows John shares the nursery with Kenna’s child, but has never once laid eyes on the other boy. He realizes why the day he finally does, after he sees Kenna sweep in to take him with her.

 

“I’m sorry; I was delayed,” she tells the nursery maid. “Bash,” she says with a nod as she takes her son out of his cradle. The boy fusses in her arms, clearly displeased to have been woken so abruptly from his nap.

 

“He’s never here when I visit John,” he remarks with a small smile. “Is this why? His doting – guardian?” he catches himself at just the right moment.

 

Kenna blushes. “I like to have him with me.” She cradles the baby protectively.

 

It’s the way she colors that makes him revise his initial assessment – not that Kenna really does keep the child with her because she wants him with her, but why the boy is never here when he is. In some things, he is a creature of habit; his visits to John are like clockwork. He drops his voice to avoid the nursery maid’s ears. “This is his nursery and I am only a visitor. You needn’t rush in to carry him off because I’m here.”

 

Kenna’s color deepens to a shade he’s never seen before, not even –

 

He shakes his head to shake out the intrusive memories and a possibility occurs to him that offends him deeply. “You don’t think I would harm him, do you?”

 

“Of course not! I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, that’s all.”

 

“I’d be a sorry sort of man if a little boy could discomfit me.”

 

“Bash, you know what I –”

 

“I know. But don’t, please, not on my account.”

 

“All right, I won’t,” she agrees, looking lighter. She smiles down at the child in her arms, a smile he has not seen in a very long time.

 

\---

 

Some time later, during one of his many visits to the nursery, he watches the boys together. They are something over a year, but less than two, apart. There is something tight in his throat at the way little John is already protective of the younger boy, at the bittersweet reminder of Francis. If their mothers have their way, they will grow up like brothers, as close as he and Francis were.

 

It strikes him that had things been different he might have called this child his son and John’s cousin, and he feels a wave of regret for their foolishness. For what might have been if Kenna had not risked it all on a lie he could not forgive.


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despite how badly their last time together ended, in the end he cannot help himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! Feeling a bit disgruntled as a Kennash shipper, but you know, that's what fic is for.

Kenna is still so beautiful and so alive and, despite how much she has changed, how much circumstances have changed them both, so much _herself_. There is a part of him that still loves her, that never stopped, the part of himself he could never give to Delphine.

 

He feels such guilt when he remembers that he asked Delphine to risk it all with him and that he did not risk it all with her, not truly. But he did try. Truly he tried. He cannot help that, no matter how far he tries to lose himself down other paths (in other women), every road leads back to Kenna.

 

\---

 

After too much wine at yet another court gathering, he cups her cheek, thumb brushing the impossibly soft skin, and kisses her.

 

She does not hesitate to kiss back.

 

It’s hunger and lust and longing, lips and tongue working with and against each other until they are both breathless, and it feels like coming home.

 

He stops, resting his forehead against hers, breathing harshly as he attempts to calm his racing heart. “Are you –” There was some tonic she used to take, a preventative.

 

She understands at once. “I – there hasn’t been any reason to.” She worries at her lip; she is more cautious now.

 

But he wants her so badly he aches with it. “I’ll be careful.”

 

“You always were,” she says softly, tilting her head up to close the distance between them again and tangling her fingers in his hair, taking the lead this time.

 

Seeing her take control in bed always set his blood aflame. It is like it always was between them and, despite how badly their last time together ended, in the end he cannot help himself.

 

\---

 

The one time is not enough; they cannot get enough of one another. As they carry on their _affaire_ , it becomes like the heady, happier days of their marriage, when they could spend whole days in bed if not interrupted by their obligations to Francis or Mary, when they broke beds with their passion. They are like a man and a woman half-starved; she is his sustenance and he hers. Sometimes it is as if they will devour each other; other times they savor every moment. Secretly, those are the times he likes best.

 

After, he watches her as she sleeps. Except for the first time, when she tried to steal from his bed like a thief before he woke up and, after the barest hesitation, asked her to stay, she always falls asleep first. She curls into him like a cat. She looks so young and relaxed in repose, a faint smile touching her lips.

 

Despite himself, he begins to imagine sharing his life with her again fully, not just his bed. Marrying her again, being a father to her son. He is half-embarrassed by how much the picture appeals to him, the way the idea stirs something soft and warm in a part of his heart he thought dead and lost to him.

 

\---

 

Despite his best efforts, it seems he was not careful enough, and he very nearly never learns of it.

 

“I – I – I’m pregnant. It’s yours,” she adds quickly when he confronts her after learning about her sudden plans to leave court with her son without telling him, plans that had him bursting into her apartments and walking straight to her bedchamber as though he owned it. “Truly, there hasn’t been anyone else. But don’t worry, I don’t expect anything, I swear. Mary has a plan –”

 

The blood rushes in his ears.

 

_But don’t worry, I don’t expect anything, I swear. Mary has a plan –_

 

Does she truly expect he can allow her to walk away, that he’ll turn his back on her? If he hadn’t been so angry and so hurt at her deception, he wouldn’t have turned his back on her even when she carried another man’s child.

 

This time, it hurts to learn she thinks so little of him. He takes a deep breath. He cannot allow himself to be overcome; anger will not help either of them now. “No,” he interrupts. “Marry me again.” It is not a question.

 

“Of course,” she says, but the expressionless look on her face cuts like a knife.

 

She will see that they can be happy, he vows to himself, because he will show her.

 

_I used to know how to make you happy. I want to be that husband again._

 

“Before everything went sideways,” he says, gentling the stark tone of moments ago. “I told you I wanted to be the husband who could make you happy again. And I will be now. I promise.”

 

Something like relief steals over her face, lightening it. “And I will be the wife that husband deserves.”

 

He pulls her close and kisses her forehead, hand stealing down to spread protectively over her belly.

 

\---

 

_I want to marry you any way you wish, but don’t young girls dream of weddings? The flowers, the dress, the man?_

 

Mary offers not only her blessing, but her congratulations. It is obvious she prefers this plan to her own, whatever it was. She offers to secure a dispensation – if they hadn’t annulled their marriage on defect of consent, they would have done it on grounds of consanguinity – and plan a grand wedding quickly. “We were able to do quite nicely for Lola on short notice at Fontainebleau. I can do the same here,” she reassures them.

 

Kenna protests, “No one will come.”

 

“They will,” Mary insists.

 

“Because you’ll make them.”

 

“Then we could do something else, away from court, so that we’re not forced to invite a whole crowd of courtiers.”

 

“I’d prefer that,” Kenna says softly.

 

“At Stirling,” Mary begins, warming to the idea. “You can say your vows in the chapel royal. And there is such a lovely garden . . .”

 

\---

 

In the end, there are just a half-dozen people with them in the chapel royal at Stirling, unless one counts the priest. Of course, there are Mary and Lola. The boys have been brought to Stirling as well, but remain in the nursery with the nursery maid, as they are far too small for a wedding.

 

The presence of two of their guests is entirely unexpected and touches him far more than he will ever admit: Charles and Claude are present, a surprise arranged by Mary. Leith traveled with them as their guard and joins them as well.  

 

Equally unexpectedly, Kenna’s eldest sister is in attendance. A wealthy dowager countess who keeps away from court and whose main occupation nowadays is guarding her young son’s – the present earl’s – interests, Cecilia no longer cares what their father says, unlike their easily ruled mother. Nor is she accountable to a husband who might disapprove of her associating with her scandalous sister.

 

Kenna nearly cried to see her when she first arrived.

 

The only person whose absence is keenly felt is Francis’s.

 

Although he hates that Kenna will never get the grand wedding of her dreams, he cannot help but think that this one was better.

 

_I, Sebastian, take this woman to be my lawful wife under the eyes of God, from this day forward._

 

This time, the words don’t stick in his throat and Kenna doesn’t weep through their vows. This time, there is a wedding supper, however small, and there are toasts. This time, every person joins them willingly and truly wishes them well.

 

He cannot help but hope this bodes better for their second attempt of marriage than their disastrous first wedding.

 

Even though she has not said the words yet ( _again_ ), he can see the love he feels in his heart reflected back at him in Kenna’s eyes that night. He knows her heart, that it is his as his is hers, and for now that is enough. 


End file.
